Chicken Soup for the Hunter's Soul
by VampirePam
Summary: When Castiel finds his usual methods incapable of comforting Dean after his confrontation with Alistair, he takes a more...human approach.


The rapping at the door is light, but unceasing. Dean groans, reaches for a pillow to heave at the offending sound, before his broken brain acknowledges that a knock _probably_ implies a knocker.

 _Sam? Wouldn't knock, has a key. Ghost? Can't knock, no hands. Thing That Goes Bump in the Night? Generally less knocking, more screaming. Lots more screaming._

"Whoever the hell you are, you better have a damn good reason for tearing me away from the Magic Fingers," Dean announces to the door, before wrenching it open and angering his aching side.

"Dean." Cas, as always, is deadly serious. Dean's too tired to figure out how fucked up it is that he's glad to see him, serious or not. "I...came to see how you were doing."

"Oh, just peachy, thanks for asking." Dean splays fingers over his left side, pressing the ribs there into a less stabby configuration. "What's with the knocking, anyhow? Normally you just _whoosh_ right in. Waiting for an invitation or something?"

"That's vampires, not angels, Dean," Cas replies, a hint of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "Nonetheless, I am informed it is human protocol to ask: may I come in?"

"Sure, why the hell not?" Dean turns back toward the bed before letting out a bitter laugh. "Could've phrased that better, all things considered. I suppose that's why you're here."

"No." The steel beneath Castiel's statement slows Dean's steps. Cas, meanwhile, echoes his halting gait with a tentative one of his own, matching him limp for limp. "I feel responsible. For what happened to you. I need...I need to make it right."

"Well, if you're in a right-making kind of mood, why don't you charge up some of that angel mumbo jumbo and magic me all better?" The pounding in his head has only gotten worse. "I hate being out of commission while Sammy chases God-knows-what without me."

"The source of your physical injuries makes healing them in the usual manner...complicated. I won't trouble you with the celestial details." To Dean's surprise, Cas places firm hands on his shoulders, eases him down onto the bed. "That doesn't mean I cannot assist you in a more human fashion."

Dean laughs, then groans at the shooting pain it sends through his ribs. "What, gonna cook me up some chicken soup? I wouldn't have pegged you for the Julia Child of the Heavenly Spheres."

"Actually..." Cas retrieves a crumpled paper bag from his coat and pulls out a small container. "I procured this at the diner down the street. A woman there - her name is Myrtle - prophesied of his curative powers'."

Dean looks from Cas to the container to Cas again, trying to make sense of everything he was seeing. "Cas, I...I was kidding!"

The determined look on Cas's face softens into one of uncertainty. "If Myrtle was incorrect..."

The angel looks so damned _sad_ that Dean can't help but reach for the container. To his relief, it does indeed smell like chicken soup - the smell brings him back to being sick when his mom was alive. She'd always let him spend the day in her bed with a steaming bowl of the stuff.

"Myrtle give you a spoon to go with this soup, or am I chugging it?" It hasn't occurred to Dean until this very moment that some of the pain in his abdomen might be hunger. He can't remember the last time he ate.

Cas extends the requested utensil ceremonially, before sitting down on the bed beside Dean. He watches with solemn concentration as Dean wolfs down the soup, shoving spoonful after spoonful into his mouth, mindless of its heat.

"Would it aid your recovery to speak about...what happened?" Cas' hand hovers over Dean's knee, as if he's on the brink of something, before drawing back again.

"Talking never helped anybody, Cas, least of all me." Dean can feel Cas' eyes stare right through him, so he fixes his own on the blank TV screen. Safer that way. "Soup, though - that was a good call."

When his spoon finally clatters into the empty container, the tired hits him all at once - a thudding sensation that raps him on the temples and drags him onto the bed. In the faraway world beyond his closed eyelids, something soft and heavy is being draped over him.

Dean's never been a great sleeper - hunter's curse, he always figured - but he hasn't gotten more than twenty minutes at a time since everything went down with Alistair, not with his own private horror movie playing 24/7 in his subconscious. Even now, the previews are threatening to roll...

...until fingers brush across his temples, cool and sure, and his brain just... _quiets_. The picture flickers, then dims, and the voices hush until finally, _finally,_ there is silence.

When the dawn comes, he will have a fragmented memory of words in an unknown tongue, whispered close to his ear. Only an empty container of chicken soup, tipped over on the nightstand, will hint at the line between dream and reality.

Nor will Dean ever be certain of the truth of his late night visit from Castiel - it sounds so absurd that no one, not even Sam, will ever hear of it. But as he drifts into a sleep free from nightmares, Dean will whisper a silent prayer of thanks to the Angel of Thursday - just in case.


End file.
